According to a couple of reports in Germany, Schalke were interested in re-signing Sead Kolasinac this summer.
Against the backdrop of our pursuit of Kieran Tierney, it was regularly suggested that Kolasinac could be a potential casualty of ‘Raul’s big cull’ but at no point was the left-back seriously linked with clubs either here or abroad.
IKZ claims that Schalke initially showed interest in a reunion with the Bosnian last January and tried again this summer only for the financials of the situation to scupper talks.
The Bosnian joined the Gunners on a free transfer in 2017 after six years at the Veltins-Arena and is understood to be on around £120,000 a week.
Perhaps they were tempted to try their luck in the aftermath of the attempted carjacking that led to an ongoing security situation and forced the Bosnian and Mesut Ozil to sit out the opening game of the season at Newcastle. Who knows.
With three left-backs on the books, Arsenal decided that they could afford to let Nacho Monreal leave instead. Kolasinac is expected to play back-up to Tierney once the Scotland international returns to fitness.
“Kolasinac is expected to play back-up to Tierney once the Scotland international returns to fitness” … Really? Source please. I would expect that he will, like everyone else, have to win his place. Tierney will have to adapt, as all other player have had to, upon arriving in England.
Not every signing has to win their place, can’t see that happening with Pepe or Tierney, they have been brought in to improve the first 11 which means they likely start unless their form gets bad enough to warrant being dropped.
They definitely win their place in training. Pepe didn’t start right away either. Needed a couple of matches and probably some great practice time.
And pepe should be dropped and rightfully if he fails to perform. But wait who is Pepe’s backup?
Perhaps the reasoning is based on Tierney being a fullback whereas Kolasinac is a wingback.
Some of the stuff that gets argued about on this site is truly nuts. Yes- Tierney has to come in and beat out Saed – everyone knows that. However since we just spent a lot on Tierney to be our left back for the next 7-10 years, the hierarchy likely believes he is capable of coming in and beating out Saed- particularly as Saed is pretty suspect at defending (good at going forward). It’s the same as saying Pepe is expected to beat out Nelson – given the talent level it’s simply assumed Pepe could do that.
Sead… just saying.
Thanks, Maul Person… /s
?
Sure 25m may suggest so but we will have to see.
There are no absolutes. Sead has improved defensively and can improve further plus as an attacking threat he has been a difference on the left.
No knowing if Tierney will deliver.
Price does not necessarily mean so otherwise you would say we should start Mustafi cos we paid 35m?
You see what I mean. Your argument does not hold water when it doesn’t suit you.
Oh Lord is that some sense I read?
This is all anyone needs to read here, this and have a small dab of common sense I beg you!
Kolasinac would play back up to andre santos.
Maybe not but tierney wont have to do much to out perform Sead in that area.
YOou want plain nuts read this one…quite obviously he is in the dark.:)
Exactly, some people live in a bubble and think when Tierney comes he will instantly save our problems but at the same time they mock SPL quality. Let’s give him time to adapt and not ruined another player because we pressure them too much.
Kola is rubbish but we couldn’t sell both him and Monreal. Tierney will be our first choice left back when he fit.
£120k a week for him in wages is a joke: he’s a Championship player. Hopefully we’ll offload him in January any bring in a decent back up left back.
Stupid comment.
Sell and have no depth in position.
Lacking in a bit of thought there.
FG you epitomise everything wrong with football fandom at the moment. I remember Kola being our only forward momentum at times last season. He’s not “rubbish”, you and your comments however are seriously up for debate.
Please, please, please! Can we have some perspective when we talk about people’s contributions last season??? The team was horribly unbalanced. Undisputable Fact. There was not enough to work the ball easily to the strikers through lack of quality or inconsistency. From that, Emery felt that the Iwobi-Kola combo was a good way of making inroads in the final third. They were the best of a bad bunch. Iwobi lacked sufficient end product and Kola’s final ball is poor for all his forward momentum. In fact, that same imbalance exists every time Kola plays. I believe he was a big… Read more »
Fully agree. I like him as a strong no nonsense player but his all round work ethic and desire to defend is poor. His crossing not much better. Next season it will be Tierney and Joel Lopez. This Spanish kid is special
We signed a better player for a somewhat hefty sum. Who not only is a better defender by all accounts but will fit our play much better than a wingback like kola. U don’t need an arsenal source telling u he will be first choice it’s just very obvious.
Sign more fullbacks when we can barely fix Cback. Very clever.
If Tierney isn’t better than old one pace, sleepy McSmashCross, then we’re doomed. Doomed I tell ye.
Worry about Sokratis and Sideshowbobmore. Kolasinac went down the wing well and provided the assist for the disallowed goal amongst others. He wasn’t culpable for the cock up for the first goal. 1) Sokratis should not have gone to challenge when Granit was already doing so. IN doing so he left space behind. Imagine if this was Mustafi doing this. 2) Luiz was turned (not for the first time) way too easily by Son 3) Leno should have had a stronger grip on a fairly tame effort 4) Sokratis was ball watching and not aware of Erickson for the tap… Read more »
I agree Sokartis was really poor last week. His aerial judgement and awareness of what was going on around him for the first goal was really shocking. He did not even look over his shoulder to see where Erickson was. For an experience defender that is not good enough. I would like them to give Chambers a try. Holding will move Sokartis to the bench when he is back and eventually Medley will come in. The discussion is about Saed so deflecting to other ailments does not change that he is not good enough. Xhaka, Mustafi, Sokartis and Saed are… Read more »
I would advise kolasinac to hire a personal defensive coach that can help him out after team training and that goes for some of our defenders…. I don’t see bellerin improving us defensively only offensively..i can’t judge Tierney because i’m yet to see him play…..if we are not being hypocritical so many arsenal fans will choose Zouma of last season over holding of last season…that tells you alot…the only defender i can trust in arsenal defensively is Tierney and that is because i haven’t seen him play?…..damn it mehn even Leicester defends better than us with an attacking coach and… Read more »
well, I do fully agree with you on Bellerin but he is Blogs absolute favourite and you’ll get downvoted just for daring to compare him to Kolašinac who is scapegoated regularely. comparing stats however shows that there is almost no diffetence between the two of them. Blogs just hates Kolašinac and loves Bellerin ergo the general opinion here is Kolas awfull and we can’t wait for bellerin to be back.
Kola is better at attacking, bellerin is better at passing – they are both equally not good at defending..
You should then advise Sokratis and SideshowBOB to get coaching too because they are way more a liability at the moment.
Should have sold him instead of Nacho. Alas.
I like Nacho as much as anyone, but he’s 33 and Sead 26. Arsenal had the opportunity to extract value off a player towards the end of his career and they did, Nacho got to sign a a 2 year contract with Sociedad. Best for all parties involved.
And we got Tierney.
Sensible. Monreal was in shop window. He is an older player. As I mentioned, I felt he had one more season left bc he was in better nick than Koscielny. Given Kolasinac vs Monreal, I would have kept the Bosnian. He is not anymore or less suspect defensively as the Spaniard and he can still improve plus he adds more going forward. These older players like Koscielny are struggling. Why we even considered keeping le Boss is beyond me. As I mentioned many times, we should understand that he did us a MASSIVE favour insisting on leaving. Monreal I would… Read more »
who would downvote this? Bosnians perhaps?
I am Bosnian. I am also very sensible.
I’d imagine kola’s wages are going to be an issue for everyone- that’s the disadvantage of a Bosman signing
Nah.We just preferred to keep him and sell an older Monreal.
Don’t imagine things.
Reality is a better.
I agree with first poster Toucan Sam. Its stupid to suggest Tierney will automatically be first choice. Proof is in the pudding. We don’t know if he will deliver or adjust that quickly and Kolasinac can (and has) improve further. Kolasinac I thought was good against Spurs, didn’t do anything wrong defensively, was alert and got up the flank well creating some of our best chances on overlap including the disallowed goal. The gaps behind us were a consequence of several things none of which were Kolasinac’s fault : 1) We were on the front foot more than expected. 2)… Read more »
Kolasinac has been one of the better transfers (along with Guendouzi) in Mslintat era. Free. Plus with the loss of Iwobi (I would have preferred if we could have kept him), we will need the added attacking weight on the left with Auba or Nelson to be supported by Kolasinac. Iwobi use to have intuitive understanding with the big Bosnian but very pleasing to see Auba similarly finding him with back flicks etc (Even Mhki played him in for the disallowed goal) His runs off the ball are very “friendly” to our other players and he whips in the ball… Read more »
“Kolasinac has been one of the better transfers (along with Guendouzi) in Mslintat era.”
You lost me here. Tbf, your stock is such that pretty much every post is automatically a down-vote.
“Free”
?♂️
Free doesn’t guarantee anything in terms of quality. And the fact that we didn’t pay for his services meant that his wages were higher… wages that in no way correlate to his ability.
Defensively over the summer Kolasinac’s work has been much more diligent with more awareness of dangers around and tracking back to clear when Cbacks are out of position. If he needs defensive coaching…errrr so do our Cbacks. We have a collection of Cbacks none of which are the real deal at the moment. Case in point (ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM) Liability Luiz. A waste of 8m IMO and no better than Mustafi except older. What we really needed was a mobile Cback with Koscielny (rightly) gone. Instead we have a player who is easily turned or passed and who loses… Read more »
Good to have Kolasinac back. Someone with the guts to defend his mate and missus against some scum with knives deserves respect. Those pissing on him here clearly not watching the matches properly (They only look out for mistakes by certain players, ignore the positives) AMN was on receiving end of this rubbish. Superb intercept to set up Auba for the goal earlier this season. BUT in the tiny minds of these few, there is no such thing as improvement. Everything is an absolute which they judge on herd mentality. I’d advise them to watch the games again with a… Read more »
He deserves respect for the act of defending himself, his possessions, his missus, absolutely… but in NO way should that automatically translate to giving him respect on the field. If he wants respect for his performance, then he needs to perform. As a LWB / LB. Simple. Conflating the two shows your ridiculous bias.
…and lack of objectivity.
He did reasonably well in the game though the same cannot be said of the
defence.I don’t know but Arsenal’s patient and laborious build up allows opposing
defences to regroup and yet Emery still persists Wenger style to thread theball
ball through a massed defence to shoot.
The latest UEFA analysis of the cl final praised Liverpool for the speed and intensity
of the their attack.These two traits were enough to win the final.
Perhaps Emery van figure out something from the report.
Remember speed and high intensity and not patient time consuming build up with
emphasis on ball retention.